Fundamentals of Forest Soils

Soil, a precious natural resource bestows its benefits to the entire biotic entity of the globe. Forestry is an interdisciplinary science and forest soils play a key role in forest management. This textbook ‘Fundamentals of Forest Soils’ is a long felt need of the students of forestry and agriculture. The motivating thought of bringing out this book is to make the students to acquaint on the fundamental and applied aspects of the forest soils. The contents of this book are brought out in such a way that it would help the readers to understand the fundamental and basic aspects of the forest soils. The fundamental aspects include geology and the earth, petrology and mineralogy, weathering and soil formation, forest soils, soil taxonomy, and forest soil organic matter. After acquiring desirable anchorage by the readers, strenuous efforts have been taken to focus their interest into the applied issues and help them to acquire deep knowledge about forest soils. The applied aspects cover nutrient cycling and nutrient management in forest ecosystems, soil fertility evaluation and forest fire.  Sincere efforts have been made to bring this book as a forefront in forest soils and all the salient features are accomplished in a self-explanatory manner. The authors hope that teachers and students of forestry and agriculture in agricultural universities or in any other organization would find this textbook useful in learning and teaching various aspects of forest soils and their management.